Norfolk Street Area Conservation Area Character Statement

Norfolk Street Area Conservation Area Character Statement The town is above half a mile in breadth from the river to Littleport-street, where the East Gate was taken down in the year 1800. High-street extends in a direct line through the heart of the town and is lined with well stocked shops and houses of public entertainment, like the market places, into which it opens; and Norfolk-street, which branches from it to the site of the East gate, and is also of considerable length. William White 1845 Character Statement Approved July 2003 Revised November 2008 Norfolk Street Conservation Area Contents Introduction 1 Setting and Location 1 King's Lynn - Origins and Historical Development 2 King's Lynn Conservation Area - 1969 to 2001 6 Changes to the Designation of King's Lynn Conservation Area 2003 6 Norfolk Street - Origins and Historical Development 6 Character Overview 11 Spaces and Buildings 13 Listed Buildings 23 Important Unlisted Buildings 24 Post-War Development 25 Traditional Materials 26 Archaeological Interest 27 Detractors 27 Appendices Appendix 1 28 Appendix 2 29 Conservation Objectives 30 [email protected] Character Statement www.west-norfolk.gov.uk Norfolk Street Conservation Area Introduction harm to the essential character of the area. This type of assessment has been A Conservation Area - “An area of special encouraged by Government Advice (PPG15) architectural or historic interest, the and it has been adopted as supplementary character or appearance of which it is planning guidance desirable to preserve or enhance”. This character statement does not address The conservation of the historic environment enhancement proposals. Community led is part of our quality of life, helping to foster enhancement schemes will be considered economic prosperity and providing an as part of a separate process. attractive environment in which to live or work. The Borough Council is committed to Setting and Location the protection and enhancement of West Norfolk’s historic built environment and King’s Lynn stands at the south-east corner significant parts of it are designated as of The Wash, but several kilometres from conservation areas. open water, at the outflow of the River Great Ouse, 170 kilometres (106 miles) from Conservation areas were introduced by the London, 69 kilometres (43 miles) 1967 Civic Amenities Act. Local Authorities west-north-west of Norwich, 74 kilometres were required to identify areas of special (46 miles) north of Cambridge and 56 architectural or historic interest, whose kilometres (35 miles) north-east of character or appearance it is desirable to Peterborough. preserve or enhance, and to designate them as conservation areas.This duty is now part of the 1990 Planning (Listed Buildings & Conservation Areas) Act which also requires the review of existing conservation areas and, where appropriate, the designation of new ones. The quality and interest of a conservation area depends upon a combination of factors including the relationship and architectural quality of buildings, materials, spaces, trees and other landscape features, together with views into and out of the area. The King’s Lynn Conservation Area was first designated in 1969 and extended in 1979 and 1991..This document highlights the special qualities which underpin the character of the conservation area, justifying its designation. It also seeks to increase awareness of those qualities so that Its location at the mouth of the Ouse, and where changes to the environment occur, the inland waterways that it serves, brought they do so in a sympathetic way without the port its early success. The basins of the [email protected] Character Statement Gaywood River and the River Nar enter the River Nar to the south. On the west side town from the north-west and the south so were marshes and the open sea, but this the land is flat, and indeed much of it is has disappeared with the silting of The Wash reclaimed from the sea. But 11 kilometres and the deviation in the course of the River (7 miles) to the east, the ridge of the western Ouse. The economy was based on fishing, chalk escarpment rises to over 90 metres some coastal trade and the production of along the roughly north-south line of the salt, but it was not a major settlement until Peddar’s Way. King’s Lynn is a low-lying Bishop Herbert de Losinga founded the new conurbation, with salt marshes to the north town in 1100 and began construction of the and the dyke-lined Fens stretching away to priory church of St Margaret. Losinga’s town south and west, often below sea-level. Huge was established to the north of the existing skies dominate the nearly featureless, settlement, roughly between the Millfleet and tree-swept landscape. Beyond Lynn to the the Purfleet with the market at Saturday north-west is the Wash. From King’s Lynn Market Place. itself views are limited, for nowhere in the conservation area does the land dip below Benefiting from the patronage of successive three metres or rise to six metres above bishops of East Anglia, Losinga’s new town sea-level. There are good views within the became a significant regional trading centre town, but to architecture not landscape, with and expanded so rapidly that by the middle the exception of The Walks. One of the best of the twelfth Century the ‘newe lande’ to the views is from West Lynn over the River Great north, between the Purfleet and the Ouse to the long and varied quays of the Fisherfleet, was developed by Bishop Turbe. town. A second market in Tuesday Market Place was established, and St Nicholas’s chapel The whole area is agricultural, with the soil constructed as a chapel-of-ease to St of the Fens being among the most productive Margaret. The number of religious houses in Europe. Vegetables for freezing and built by the mendicant friars is, as always, a processing are grown locally and this sign of the importance of a town, and in Lynn determines the nature of the bulk of Lynn’s they arrived early and in numbers: the indigenous industry, with the product going Greyfriars in about 1230, the Blackfriars in by road and from the port of Lynn. The town 1272, the Austin friars in 1293 and the is in the centre of a local agricultural Whitefriars in about 1260. To protect these catchment area, with small- or medium-sized and the expanding European trade the market towns, and the nearest population original defence earthworks were replaced centre which exceeds Lynn’s 35,000 is the to the north and north-east by flint and brick city of Peterborough. walls begun in the 1290s and running as far south as the Purfleet. South of that, as far King's Lynn - Origins and as the South Gates, was a system of ditches Historical Development and earthworks fed by the two rivers, the two fleets and by a canal dug to link the Nar and King’s Lynn has its origins in the Saxon the southeast quadrant of the defences. Lynn period, but the first settlement was small, based round a series of salt-water lagoons defined by the Millfleet to the north and the www.west-norfolk.gov.uk Norfolk Street Conservation Area relied on water for landward defences as it attributed ‘more gentry and gaiety’ to Lynn relied on the River Great Ouse and The than to Norwich: the merchants could afford Wash for its prosperity. it. Trade declined in the 19th Century. First were the Napoleonic Wars, a disaster for a town which specialised in European trade, not with the expanding world empire. In 1844 came the railway, with more convenient and Most trade went by sea and river, and there reliable access to the eastern counties, is evidence that ocean-going ships unloaded causing a slump in coastal trade. By the last at quays into river craft for distribution inland. quarter of the Century rail communications Merchants from the Low Countries had by from Lynn were some of the best in England, the 12th Century established the Continental including easy access to London and Hull, trade in wool: in the 1260s 1200 bales were stifling the interests of owners of small ships. exported, rising to 2000 by the early 14th To compensate, the Alexandra Dock was Century. In the other direction came Gascon opened in 1869. Located north of the Fisher wine, coal, Baltic timber and luxury goods, Fleet it was capable of taking larger especially after the Hanseatic League deep-draught vessels and eliminating the established a trading centre in Lynn. After big problem in Lynn - the tidal nature of the that only London and Southampton (also River Great Ouse which meant that loading with Hansa offices) beat Lynn in export and unloading had to be done at the turn of volume and value. In less than 200 years each high tide. The Bentinck Dock followed Lynn grew from an obscure Saxon in 1883, but the great trading days of the port settlement crouching by a salt-water lagoon were over. into the third greatest port of England. There was always industry in Lynn: From the 16th Century cereal export shipbuilding from medieval times, and heavy dominated, with coal, wine and timber engineering following the construction of the constituting the principal return loads, and docks and the arrival of the railway. Traction by the 18th Century Lynn and Yarmouth engines, farm machinery and fairground were the principal grain handling ports in rides were made at the Savage works, and England. In 1800 these two centres handled Dodman’s Highgate Ironworks of 1875 made more grain traffic than all other ports in boilers, locomotives and ships.

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